You should never use a facemask. NEVER. It develops the bad habit of not blacking when strikes come to your face. You need to learn how to block blows coming to your face, and more importantly, how to react when STRUCK there. The facemask will do more harm then good imo.

11/15/2004 9:03am,

Zeddy

Though it would save you from getting your lights put out occassionally. Same reasoning for wearing headgear when boxing?

I'm not sure about this, this is the first time I've actually seen a facemask. Considering a lot of tkd people leave their hands down anyway, what's so bad about it?

No idea whether jsun leaves his down, of course.

11/15/2004 9:19am,

Ronin

Head gear is one thing, face mask is another.

the advice of :
" Using your hands to cover. "

Is the best one.

I would really try to get away from face masks, if you can.

11/15/2004 12:15pm,

Raven

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeddy

Though it would save you from getting your lights put out occassionally. Same reasoning for wearing headgear when boxing?

I'm not sure about this, this is the first time I've actually seen a facemask. Considering a lot of tkd people leave their hands down anyway, what's so bad about it?

No idea whether jsun leaves his down, of course.

I HATE headgear as well. Thought I gotta admit, it comes in handy if you fall. You still get HIT in the head with headgear, you still FEEL it. I cannot talk about boxing head gear, but the foam ones most martial arts guys wear that I have seen, really don't do much of anything IMO.* A face guard oth, comepletely blocks the blow, it doesn't register on the SAME level. I know guys in TKD who wore one, they never blocked face shots. They didn't have too. Tell me, is that smart training?

*I would wager that much like boxing gloves, they are meant to protect the strikers hands, and not the person recieveing the blow. Though, I could be wrong on this.

11/15/2004 12:18pm,

Raven

OH, and the leaving the hands down thing, I'be heard TWO explainations on that.

1) TKD people do it to generate more power in their kicks.
2) It's a sign of poor training.

Now, which makes more sense to you? I'm gonna go with 2 myself. It *may* generate more power (Someone witha physics background could probably give us a better answer then I could), but too me that irrelevant if you face is getting punched in.